An American Fight
Three Americans who identify themselves as Irish Catholics (as I would) have had a big fight. It revolves ostensibly around the assertion by Joan Walsh, one of the editors of Salon.com, that Irish Catholic people have a very strong and nepotistic grip on fire departments in America.
I'm not sure that I understand Ms Walsh's transformation of an affirmative action issue into an Irish Catholic one. The contention started from the revelation that a fire officer, Frank Ricci (who is of Italian extraction) was denied a job for which he had studied and worked very hard despite passing a test for the job on the basis that, since over eighty black people per hundred failed the test too, it was potentially discriminatory and therefore not a basis for advancement.
The bigger issue of who should be the next Supreme Court nominee is below the surface, since the early hints seems to be that a Puerto Rican woman from an Appeals District should be. I also think that the debate shows how remarkably conservative, and traditional, the United States is capable of being. There are times when it is, to mangle my descriptors, a byzantine mix of liberal and feudal.
That citizens could have a shouting match over a Judicial appointment, is also an indicator of who thinks they own the law over there.
The issue clearly has a great deal of salience on the American right. I can't help noticing how the chatter is increasing from that part of the spectrum. Conservatives have in recent weeks flirted, though not seriously, with the idea of secession; suggested that a protocol over a decade old to control illegal weapons on the North American continent is a prelude to being disarmed; and launched legal assaults on the ACORN organisation for--I hold no brief--having indicted, but not convicted, individuals on the payroll.
Let this be a warning to you. Many English-speaking people make the mistake of thinking that the US is just some amalgam of British and Irish traditions which can be explained because it speaks English. I think that it is a very different world, and one which is at the moment on the brink of decline into being an American power with a global reach. America, after all, includes Brazil. I'm fascinated by it.
The Obama/Santos administration is currently floating on tides of media approval, but when the right is enraged, and when the left becomes frustrated with it, and when the economics start to go wrong again, and when the return of backlash issues, however atavistic, filter down to the lapping tides of anger that seem permanently to exist amongst some in the republic, what on earth going to happen?
Three Americans who identify themselves as Irish Catholics (as I would) have had a big fight. It revolves ostensibly around the assertion by Joan Walsh, one of the editors of Salon.com, that Irish Catholic people have a very strong and nepotistic grip on fire departments in America.
I'm not sure that I understand Ms Walsh's transformation of an affirmative action issue into an Irish Catholic one. The contention started from the revelation that a fire officer, Frank Ricci (who is of Italian extraction) was denied a job for which he had studied and worked very hard despite passing a test for the job on the basis that, since over eighty black people per hundred failed the test too, it was potentially discriminatory and therefore not a basis for advancement.
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The bigger issue of who should be the next Supreme Court nominee is below the surface, since the early hints seems to be that a Puerto Rican woman from an Appeals District should be. I also think that the debate shows how remarkably conservative, and traditional, the United States is capable of being. There are times when it is, to mangle my descriptors, a byzantine mix of liberal and feudal.
That citizens could have a shouting match over a Judicial appointment, is also an indicator of who thinks they own the law over there.
The issue clearly has a great deal of salience on the American right. I can't help noticing how the chatter is increasing from that part of the spectrum. Conservatives have in recent weeks flirted, though not seriously, with the idea of secession; suggested that a protocol over a decade old to control illegal weapons on the North American continent is a prelude to being disarmed; and launched legal assaults on the ACORN organisation for--I hold no brief--having indicted, but not convicted, individuals on the payroll.
Let this be a warning to you. Many English-speaking people make the mistake of thinking that the US is just some amalgam of British and Irish traditions which can be explained because it speaks English. I think that it is a very different world, and one which is at the moment on the brink of decline into being an American power with a global reach. America, after all, includes Brazil. I'm fascinated by it.
The Obama/Santos administration is currently floating on tides of media approval, but when the right is enraged, and when the left becomes frustrated with it, and when the economics start to go wrong again, and when the return of backlash issues, however atavistic, filter down to the lapping tides of anger that seem permanently to exist amongst some in the republic, what on earth going to happen?
Comments
Their whole discussion is mildly absurd but thats what passes for news in the US. Smart money says to stick to print or digital media if you want any meaty or substantial current events coverage. I try to keep myself to an hour of RSS feeds a day.